


snakes on a plane

by Siria



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha didn't break eye contact with Tony as she reached into one of the pockets of her utility belt, pulled out a small tube, and then deliberately and methodically coated her hands with sanitiser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	snakes on a plane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Everbright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everbright/gifts).



> Written to a prompt by Everbright; thanks to Sheafrotherdon for betaing.

Natasha didn't break eye contact with Tony as she reached into one of the pockets of her utility belt, pulled out a small tube, and then deliberately and methodically coated her hands with sanitiser. 

"Oh come on!" Tony said. "It's not _that_ bad, it's just for one mission, and honestly it was mostly decorative anyway. Largely, not really used, hardly ever. Rhodey could vouch for me!" He paused for a moment. "... If he lied."

"You want us to head out on an op," Clint said, stashing his kit in one of the storage lockers near the rear of the jet, "on a corporate plane that has a stripper pole in it? Not that I'm really objecting here, I just want to hear you say it out loud."

"Stripper pole is such a reductive term," Tony said, "for what is a quality piece of recreational, and actually really educational, equipment." 

"Educational," Natasha said flatly. Tony was grinning at them in what he no doubt thought was a winning manner, gesturing at the pole like a manic host on one of those home shopping networks Natasha sometimes ended up watching at three in the morning when she was stuck running a stakeout from some terrible motel.

Tony started to tick things off on his fingers. “Many different subject areas! Aesthetics, physics, aerodynamics—hey," he said as Steve made his way onto the plane, "bet we could even use it to teach Cap here some gross physical anatomy. Emphasis on the gross." 

Tony waggled his eyebrows; Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Pretty sure that joke was old when I was a kid," Steve said. 

"You had stripper poles in the Forties?" Clint said, sounding intrigued.

Steve took a seat and dug a paperback out of his backpack. "Well, we definitely had strippers. Met Gypsy Rose Lee back in '42."

"No kidding?" Clint said. "What was she like?"

Steve shrugged. "Pretty sharp. Funny."

"My god," Tony said, sounding appalled. "It's like I don't even know who you are anymore."

"Aren't we supposed to be in Buenos Aires in under eleven hours?" Natasha said, taking a seat next to Steve. The man was like her own portable space heater, a fact which Natasha had already taken shameless advantage of during a nightmare of a mission to Manitoba. "Because it seems like we're sitting on a runway in New York while you guys rack up violations of SHIELD workplace harassment policies."

Tony pressed a hand to his chest, right over where the arc reactor used to be. "Natasha, you wound me."

"You could always file a complaint with the union, Nat," Steve said, flipping to the next page in his book. 

"You've unionised SHIELD?" Tony said. "Of course you've unionised SHIELD, why am I even surprised that you've unionised SHIELD, my god, if you say those words often enough they lose all meaning, JARVIS, can you run the odds on there being a particular level of inanity associated with those particular syllables—"

All of this meant that Tony wasn't paying attention when Clint got bored and decided to haul himself up to the top of the pole. Natasha bit back a smirk. She'd taken shameless advantage of those thighs a time or two also, and they were shown off to excellent advantage here when Clint bent backwards so that he could look at them all upside down. 

"Huh," he said, pulling himself around; it looked like he was experimenting to see what range of motion he could get without losing his grip. "This could definitely be a pretty cool workplace perk."

Tony turned around, saw him, and yelped. "Oh my god, unexpected airborne snipers are totally a workplace hazard, are you kidding me? Though on second thoughts, ha, maybe that means should I have one installed on the helicarrier, let you discombobulate Fury. No, no, wait," he snapped his fingers, "I'll get one put onto Coulson's plane as a thank you gift for all the trauma he caused with his whole whoops-not-actually-dead stunt. Maybe I'll hire him a Cap-a-like stripper to use it. Huh," he said, when he saw the blank looks on their faces, "too soon?" 

Clint dropped down to the floor. "This is probably something you've heard a lot around stripper poles, dude, but way to ruin the mood."

"That is… sadly not entirely inaccurate," Tony said, rocking back on his heels. "Argentina now?"

"Now," Natasha said firmly. 

(The pole that Tony installed on Coulson's plane was made of see-through acrylic filled with multicolour LEDs, and played Europop at an incredibly loud volume if anyone tried to approach it. The next time that Melinda met up with Natasha for lunch, she grimaced and said, "This means war."

Natasha just smirked and tossed her the rest of the hand sanitiser.)


End file.
